The present invention relates to a method for collecting data from electronic voting units.
Systems and methods that manage electronic voting units are already known.
These methods are currently able to manage accurately a very limited number of voting units, since they use a single data exchange unit to receive the votes. The trivial solution is to increase the transmission and reception power in order to be able to extend the number of votes collected. However, in every country the law sets limits to emissions, and therefore the area covered by the individual exchange unit has the physical limitation of emission power.
The aim of the present invention is to provide a method that allows to obviate the above mentioned drawbacks while keeping at minimal levels the irradiated power and the consequent electromagnetic pollution.
Within this aim, an object of the present invention is also to reduce vote collection time and achieve high accuracy.
Another object is to cover a vast area for querying the voting units.
Another object is to provide a method that achieves the above aim and objects in a manner that is simple, relatively easy to provide in practice, safe in use, effective in operation, and has a relatively low cost.
This aim and these and other objects which will become better apparent hereinafter, are achieved by the present method for collecting data from electronic voting units which are standing by to receive enabling commands, characterized in that it comprises the steps of:
sending a vote opening/control command from a central logic unit to a plurality of peripheral logic units by way of first connection means;
sending said vote opening/control command to a plurality of voting units set to simultaneous reception by way of second connection means;
storing the vote in said voting unit if said command is a vote opening command;
setting said voting units to the mode for sending the stored vote;
sending in succession, from each individual peripheral logic unit, a vote collection command for blocks of voting units or individual voting units;
sending to said peripheral logic units a vote signal, in response to said vote collection command, from each one of said voting units in a preset time interval;
transmitting the votes collected by said peripheral logic units to said central logic unit;
transmitting the votes collected in the voting session to a computer.